


The Seduction of Violence in Hannibal Lecter’s Funhouse (Meta)

by HappyFuseli



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins Movies), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Ambrose - Freeform, Book: Red Dragon (1981), Bryan Fuller - Freeform, Episode: 01e12 Releves, Episode: s01e11 Rôti, Existentialism, Fantasy Violence, Gen, Hannibal meta, John Barth, Lost in The Funhouse, Meta, Metafiction, Postmodernism, Thomas Harris - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyFuseli/pseuds/HappyFuseli
Summary: This short essay was originally written and published in 2013 on Tumblr. It discusses how fantasy violence, as portrayed through the various guises of Hannibal Lecter, allow us to ask important existential questions from a safe distance, a distance provided us through the sanctuary of fiction.
Kudos: 5





	The Seduction of Violence in Hannibal Lecter’s Funhouse (Meta)

At the end of Roti (Ep. 11) of NBC’s Hannibal, the following exchange takes place between Hannibal Lecter and his psychiatrist, Dr. Du Maurier, while discussing Hannibal’s connection with Will Graham. “Madness,” Lecter says, “can be a medicine for the modern world. You take it in moderation and it’s beneficial.”

Du Maurier’s reply?

“You overdose and it can have unfortunate side-effects.”

Being that he obviously considers himself a kind of artist, his crime scenes over-the-top and often reminiscent of great works brought to life, Hannibal knows better than anyone the importance of art and literature, not only in confronting the existential predicament, but also in “restoring” the imagination. Brian Eno, in A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary, quoted British artist and theorist, Roy Ascott, saying, “Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.”

Thus Lecter’s reply to Du Maurier:

“Those side effects can be temporary. They can be a boost to our psychological immune systems to fight the existential crisis of normal life.”

Hannibal, in this moment of Brechtian Theater, proves himself to be a self-aware storyteller. It is characters like Hannibal Lecter, after all, who allow us (the viewers) to “restore” ourselves through “story” violence. It’s almost as if, through this conversion, Lecter and Du Maurier have broken the fourth wall. They’re letting us know that, though we won’t necessarily be given all the answers, Hannibal’s story will somehow enhance our lives by encouraging us to ask important questions about what it means to be a human being, and what it means to be so easily seduced and, through experiencing (or reliving) trauma, restored through madness.

Lecter is, at times, very much like Ambrose, a character in John Barth’s “Lost in The Funhouse”, in that he’s aware of what’s happening outside the realm of the story or identity he’s created for himself. Lecter, through this conversation with Du Marurier (in Roti), reveals that he, like Ambrose, desires to “construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator” (Barth). Of course, we already knew, through Lecter’s interaction with Will Graham, of what Lecter refers to in Releves (Ep. 12 - to Abigail Hobbs) as a natural “curiosity”. And are we not a little curious, too?

In the short story “Lost in The Funhouse”, Barth delivers what appears to be the actual text of a story being written by a young author. Much like the description of the funhouse, the text is a struggle to read, mirroring the author’s struggle in composition. Never is the identity of the narrator clearly indicated. Although we most likely believe the narrator to be Ambrose, we are meant to, at different times, question the identity of the narrator. Similarly, Hannibal Lecter, hidden safely within his “well-tailored person-suit”, is leaving behind “reality” in order to imitate “Hannibal”, his own creation.

Both Hannibal and Ambrose choose the illusion of reality over physical reality. Bryan Fuller admitted recently that Lecter’s sister, Mischa (referenced in both the novels and films), is “at the root of Hannibal’s affection for Abigail.” At the end of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal, we witness Lecter’s attempt, and eventual failure, to “remake” Clarice Starling into a version of his sister. In Releves, we see a similar attempt with Abigail Hobbs, although in this case, Lecter’s failure to “protect” Abigail ends with her death.

Ambrose, after a time spent questioning himself and the world around him, decides to become a writer. The life of a writer isn’t necessarily the fate he craves, yet he subscribes to it as though it were his doom. Likewise, Lecter is doomed to the Sisyphean search for Mischa. In Hannibal, Harris describes Lecter’s “memory palace” as “a mnemonic system well known to ancient scholars.” In this palace there are “a thousand rooms, miles of corridors, [and] hundreds of facts attached to each object furnishing each room […].” Could it be that, like Ambrose with Magda, his cousin and adolescent obsession, Lecter uses this memory palace to conceive an entire future for himself and his future Mischa, determining his own reality through daydreaming and visualizing? This description of Lecter’s memories allows us, as readers, to deliberately go beyond the narrative to question reality and the fabric of the self. Lecter is like the disposed middleman; he is what lies between reality and fiction (or, in this case, the written word).

Taking a step back, we see the character of Hannibal Lecter as a work of fiction, the work of an author. By forming an understanding of Hannibal, the fictional character, and his journey along the hallways of his memory palace, we come to understand the psychological attitudes of a concrete, physical human being. Hannibal admits to Du Maurier that he “sees himself in Will” Graham, a point repeated in Red Dragon when Hannibal confesses that Will only caught him because they’re apparently “very much alike.” Lecter presents Will Graham with the funhouse mirror, hoping that Will finds himself somewhere in the hazy blur. However, as the viewer/reader, we also find ourselves in that mirror. Like unwitting soldiers at war, we may find ourselves responding to the imposed madness through an instinctual violence we didn’t know existed.

What’s truly frightening about Hannibal’s story isn’t the fear of encountering an evil without reason, but rather, it’s the possibility that so-called “good” people like Will Graham (like us) are, under the right circumstances, capable of horrific violence. Perhaps that’s why characters like Hannibal Lecter are so important. We know that we’re not bad people, only that we’ve encountered a bad person in Hannibal. Within him is the madness that relieves the audience of moral responsibility, and through him we can “fight the existential crisis of normal life.”

© Christi Gravett 2013


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